The prompt. I thought healing would feel like sunlight.......
I thought healing would feel like sunlight.... Instead, it feels like a sunburn. A slow burn of fire on tender skin, forcing me to lose sleep due to uncomfortable pain and thoughts that this is what life will be like for the unforeseeable future. I try to aid the pain and suffering with aloe, and at first, it's a relief I didn't know I needed. Then a quiet sting that reminds me that the damage runs deeper than the skin. After a while I have to shed the parts of myself I thought I couldn't live without, leaving me raw, unrecognizable, and unsure if I've healed at all. Until I realize the sting is gone. The tenderness has faded, and in its place is new skin, stronger and softer, ready to feel the sunlight again.
-Kelly
I thought healing would feel like sunlight....
But instead, it feels like moonlight.
It's disorienting, scary, and messes with your sense of reality.
You want so desperately to find the sun, but a part of your heart starts to grow accustomed to the dark and almost attached to it. A sense of comfort develops and you don't really want to leave it. But slowly people show you little bits and pieces of the light.... And you know that is where you need to be... So you work and chase the light. You come across a LOT of fake lights. Light bulbs, flashlights, candles.... But none of it feels right and you know that isn't the way to go. So you work to move away from those until you can finally find the real sunshine. It's hard and dark most of the way, but you get there... Then you have to work to keep the darkness and the flashlights away. For a while they still call for you. But after a while of living in the light, you know you don't need them.
-Neeko
I thought healing would feel like sunlight..... but it's cold, lonesome, and empty. You can feel warmth. You know it is near, but you had to break from the past and now..... Now you have to rebuild. The foundations have to start somewhere, and the firmest foundation is built in the ground.
No one is there. You have to place the bricks. Time gives you the mortar to make the healing stay. You learn how to love again. Learning to place each brick more carefully than you ever thought you would.
Each brick lifts you up a little further. Building steps as you rise.
Soon, you know you have to be above the ground, but the walls are around you. Keeping you safe.... but keeping you cold and lonely as well. So, you keep building. Hoping that there will be light, that there will be more heat. Hoping for the sun again.
Until the day comes that someone takes your brick. You keep putting more up, but they are quicker than you and soon...... soon the walls are lowered and you find yourself on top of a skyscraper of support you built yourself, holding the hand of the one who showed you the light. Then.... and only then..... healing will feel like flying.
-Chelsey
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